Chương 5: A Kingdom Just for Me.

Wow, my life is never going to be the same again after this. A wild grin broke out. Domain Core Absorbed: Myrraval (Crown) (Mythic) +30 Flux Quality, +30 Flux Control, +30 Resonance Unlocking Attunement…. Attunement already present. +5 Attunement. Unlocking Authority…. +30 Authority. Title Achieved: Self-made Lord Absorb a domain crown core as an unclassed without inheriting it. +10 Authority, +3 to all stats Title Achieved: Mythic One Absorb a mythic core as an unclassed.

+50 Authority Subskill gained - Grand Administrator: Controlled domain crop and ore yields increase by 1% for every level of this skill. Increase all yields by 1% Acquired: Evolution Token She sat down to properly absorb the changes. I have real stats! And an evolution token! I don't want to get greedy, but with stats like these I think I can enter a dungeon unclassed. I have what? like 30 levels worth of stats right now? Farmer boys have killed fluxspawn with less before. Nythera hummed to herself.

This domain skill seems interesting, but I don't really need yields or crop output. And froze, her eyes widening. Fucking damn it… With a domain core in my possession everyone will know, and I'll have actual responsibilities now if they decide not to kill me on the spot. Everyone in a domain knows who the domain holder is… shit. Nythera scrambled up the stairs, her foot slipping off the smooth stone. Welp, now everyone on this fine island knows there is a domain holder.

And I bet half of them are going to try to kill me for it. An unclassed with an island core? Talk about a free spark. And of course, Lance knows exactly where I went…. I've got to get out of here, fast. Finishing her climb, she looked around for a lock of some sort, but couldn't find any runic scripts on the inside of the vault. Well it'll probably take them a half day to get here, I need to be very gone by then. Nythera stepped out of the vault and … Where am I again? She turned to the right.

The beach is over there… right? Or was it…? She turned to the left. Nope, no clue. I should have paid more attention to Will when he navigated. A few yards from the entrance she looked around, closed her eyes and started spinning in space slowly. She stopped ten seconds later. This'll have to do, not like I know where anything is anyways. Off she went, walking in that direction. If she could find a river or lake she would be able to get water, but food would be another matter entirely, and she had none.

Nythera walked for hours, certain she was leaving the most obvious footprints that anyone could ever ask for. It had been always been Will who had kept their tracks hidden. Will would have throttled me if he saw the tracks I am leaving. I should have learned more from him when I had the chance. She winced as she looked back and saw the deep muddy footprint she had just left in plain sight.

On several occasions she climbed up into the trees to hide from roaming fluxspawn, mostly big turtle-like creatures that prowled through the undergrowth, leaving paths of destroyed foliage in their wake. Their shells sometimes glistened with blood. Thank Kronan, they can't climb. Lance wasn't joking, this place is full of them. Fortunately they are quite stupid. There were several cases where she had to sprint up trees, as most of the beasts couldn't fly, but they could run. Fast.

The beasts around here appeared to be nothing more than large wolves, fortunately mundane fluxspawn were still quite manageable. She reviewed her stats during one of these tree hiding occurrences.

Strength - 17 Dexterity - 19 Constitution - 28 Endurance - 19 Intelligence - 19 Wisdom - 18 Charisma - 18 Flow Quality - 44 Flux Control - 44 Resonance - 41 Attunement - 13 Authority - 90 Health: 280/280 Flux: 943/943 Stamina: 190/190 Wow, I'm basically a full-blown classed in all but name now, I'm probably as powerful as classed-adult farmers or older adults with high level professions. Maybe. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. An avarice-filled grin broke out.

Authority is my highest stat? And disappeared. She wasn't sure how she felt about that, authority was often exploited by nobles for many things, perverse or corrupt, given it could be used to order people in your domain to do almost anything. I could just order them not to kill me? And then get assassinated in my sleep… or by someone three strata above me before I could even speak… yeah, no.

Nythera had been walking at a brisk pace for the last three hours, and her brisk pace was getting faster as she adapted to her new stats. Her stamina was barely dropping at all. Before such a pace would have left her exhausted within thirty minutes. As she forged her path ahead through the undergrowth, she eventually stumbled upon a large meandering river. Colossal and slow, but crossing it would still be a challenge, given she had no boat.

Swimming in a fluxspawn-infested area is about the stupidest thing I could do. As if I'm going to dangle myself out there like oversized fish bait. She walked up the thin, sandy bank of the river looking for pieces of sizable driftwood. She lifted a piece of driftwood to examine it. This will allow me to float for maybe five minutes, if I get lucky. Wouldn't it just be splendid if someone could make a nice big bridge here so I could walk across As if.

As she followed the bend of the river, the sandy bank disappeared into dirt and root and she was forced to step back into the forest to continue following the river. Then she saw it. No fucking way. A massive monolith of stone, the bridge had a dozen supporting pillars jutting out of the water… although there appeared to be a substantial gap in the structure not even one third of the way to the opposite bank. By the blazes, that is one Hel of a bridge… I don't think most dukes had something of this size.

Wait, there is no way in Hel that anyone from Grandport built this. The village was nice… but they lacked the capabilities to make grand engineering works like this. Besides, this bridge was overgrown with vegetation, ferns and vines clung to the sides, and full-grown trees stuck out of the middle. She made her way up and onto the bridge. Crossing this will make me much harder to track, at least this way there will be a break in my footprints. But if they have a professional tracker…

As she made her way up the ramp she heard a low sound from behind. GRRRRRR Turning her head, Nythera spotted the biggest animal she had ever laid eyes on, a bear of silver fur with bright blue lines running through its coat. Flux around it shot out in jagged lines, constantly shifting every few seconds. By Kronan, that fluxspawn is massive. And it was looking straight at her. She turned her head back and tiptoed forwards.

CRASHHH She bolted down the bridge, weaving between the ancient trees and trying not to slip on well-misted rocks. No way that giant thing can fit between these trees and the bridge wall…. CRACKKK The sound of trees snapping pierced the air. She picked up her pace, she was beyond the ramp now and well above the river on the flat part of the bridge. The trees were rapidly thinning out, but she was approaching the gap.

CRAAAACK CRRRRAAAASH As Nythera reached the gap, her worst fears came to be, it was substantially larger than she had expected. I try jumping and I'm just going to turn into fish food. There was a single tree here, a maple, right near the edge. She could try climbing it but that would make her little more than a meat skewer to the bear. There is only one way, forwards. She knelt on the ground between the gap and the tree, and summoned her bombard. Come on buddy, we can do this.

This time the flux flowed freely from her into the construct, she saw where before she had formed clumsy fluxlinks and inefficient fluxflows, and corrected them with nothing more than a wave of her hand. Her fluxpool handled the cost with ease and the construct fully manifested, not a flaw in its system-guided construction, all within 2 seconds. Wow, I'm practically an expert mage now. Should I go apply for a scholarship to that magic academy by The Crevasse? I bet I could even go to…

CRACCCCK She awoke from day dreaming. The bear was practically on top of her, a huge path of snapped trees behind it with few trees left in front. Half of them had simply been pushed off the bridge, the walls of which were now considerably more porous than they had been before. Nythera sprinted up the tree, the higher she could get, the better. Her beautiful bombard waited for her signal at the base.

Her newly-strengthed body made climbing up the tree a breeze, she quickly reached the uppermost branches that would still support her weight. The titan of a bear shoved the last trees out of the way and came to a stop in front of her tree. Its eyes staring straight into hers, its pupils were blue, just like the stripes across its fur with sparks of tiny flux jumping along them. They jumped in sync with the ambient flux around the bear.

The fucking thing is charged, it could be a sub-guardian or just a really nasty fluxspawn… It might be able to kill me where it stands. Without another thought, Nythera tightened her grip on the tree. FIRE! The small mortar launched its magical shell… Straight into the tree trunk. The base shattered and it toppled over. The shell proceeded through the tree and into the fluxspawn's chin. A pained roar bellowed out of the monster.

The wind-rush past her as she headed straight for the other side of the gap, if the base of the tree gave out now she would simply plummet into the rushing current below. Just a little more, a little more…. Now! She slammed into the ground on the other side. The bear had recovered from the bombard with seemingly no damage, and was simply standing at the other side. Staring straight at her. It braced itself on its back legs, leaning down into the ground.

Ah, shit Nythera sprinted down the remaining two-thirds of the bridge. If she could make it to thick-enough undergrowth she may lose the beast. She felt a static charge in the air, a zmmming sound permeating around her. She had already passed by a half dozen trees when she felt the bridge shake. Glancing behind her, she could see the goliath hanging off the edge of the bridge, front claws digging into the stone. I am not going to be bear food! At least this might throw the hunters off my trail…..

Or paint a painfully obvious arrow. Would a scorched tree and a bunch of bear marks scream "Fleeing girl"? She bolted down the bridge, galavanting over strewn bricks and tricky roots. The bridge shook and thundered behind her, more snapping noises as the forest cried for its lost brethren. Fortunately with no more gaps ahead, the obstacles would increasingly work in her favor, the trees growing bigger and bigger and the roots more densely intertwined.

When she reached the end of the bridge she looked back, the fluxspawn struggled with the thicker tree cover and the gap had significantly widened. This is it! Time to make myself scarce! She sprinted straight into the forest, going as fast as her newly enhanced body would allow. Her stamina plummeted as she whipped through the forest. The foliage on this side was thinner and easier to maneuver through. As she went, the ambient flux seemed to be changing.

She saw many of the same colors as before, but the green hue was starting to thin out. However, there was a familiar flux current, just like the one she spotted at the Grandport plaza, it wove through the trees, coming from and going to places long forgotten. Ah fuck it, I'll try following it. I have to move fast. She made her way to the silver current and followed it deep into the woods.

Not half an hour passed before she arrived at a similar looking structure, an ovoid pitch black stone protruding out of the ground located in a depression. Nythera, you're one clever girl. She smirked. As she approached, she could make out runes carved into it, barely visible under the shifting light.

"Myrraval Supply Depot #5" Now how do I open this thing, no clear entrance anywhere, just this rock… and a bunch of dirt. Nythera paced around the stone, scrutinizing it for some kind of keyhole. *CRAAAACK The sound of a tree being snapped in two pierced through the air For fucks sake! If Will were here it'd already be cooking over a campfire. Nythera desperately clung to the stone, looking for any mechanism to open it, probing and searching its surface. Nythera looked up.

Right in front of her face, the silver current of flux pierced into the stone from above. There was a strange carving on the top, wavy asymmetrical lines surrounded the peak. She stood up and looked at the marking from above. Oh Nythera threw her left hand on top of the stone, lining up her fingers with the marking. She felt a pinch on her thumb and pulled her hand off the stone, her thumb dripping blood. The rock slid to the side, pushing away dirt, root, and stone. A gaping hole of pitch darkness lay before her.